


The Rules

by samidha



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, My First Fanfic, My First Work in This Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-18
Updated: 2008-06-18
Packaged: 2018-12-01 14:31:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11488329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/samidha
Summary: Literally my first fic. Written in 2008. Things don't go the way Dean would like them to.





	The Rules

February

Dean trudged down the road from the bus stop. He didn’t know why he bothered opening his mouth. Ever.

Sure, he could drop-kick any of the kids at school who messed with him, he could lay them out flat and make them beg for their mommies. So he didn’t have to give a crap what they thought. But that wasn’t the point. Especially when it was a girl. First things first, unless his dad had undeniable proof that that she was really an it, really an it, Dean didn’t beat up girls. He had more class than that. Second, he just did give a crap. That was the way things went. And God himself—if he existed, which Dean was pretty sure he didn’t—would have to help Dean Winchester whenever that girl was pretty and blonde, because he just saw his mom and it was all over from then on.

Dean forced himself to stay away from pretty blondes as much as he could. They were dangerous to him. Anything they said could cut so damn deep, and no amount of self-deprecating talk about what a wimpy Mama’s boy he was could distract him, dull the edges of that pain.

It didn’t work because how could he be a Mama’s boy without a Mama? And every time he remembered that he just hurt worse. It got so bad that sometimes if the right girl even said hi to Dean Winchester he busted open inside and wound up spending the rest of the day concentrating on holding it together. Which meant he laughed too hard even to his ears and he told the worst jokes imaginable. He was embarrassed to be himself. Eleven years now, and he couldn’t just talk to a girl, not seriously. And it was all because he remembered what his mother looked like that night.

\--

So Dean ran for the house like a bat out of hell every afternoon, and only once he was over the line of salt at the front door with a hop did his heart slow down. Safe. Safe with his sparring drills and his gun-cleaning kit and a toolbox full of things that could help put a car right. On days like this he didn’t even mind coming home to the prospect of cooking dinner for Sam—one of the worst chores in the history of the world, because he hated having to watch Sam force down his terrible cooking, or peanut butter sandwiches for the fortieth meal in a row. But at least there was usually something.

Chores weren’t a problem. Girls were a problem.

And forget schoolwork. Just screw that idea completely. Dean needed to get lost in something, hold onto something he could do something about. Screw essays on the solution to world hunger or a + 5b = x. Dean would scrub the kitchen near bare of paint or do a hundred obstacle courses John set up before he’d ever crack a book. Dean didn’t see a problem with that. There were more important things than quadratic equations. There were people he could save. Would save. He just had to keep his head clear. Keep his mind on what mattered. The hunt. His family. That was all.

\--

May

Janice Millman was blonde, with green-blue eyes like the ocean, like—-damn. And he had gone back on his rules. Everything he’d learned. Keep your head down. We’ll be moving on too soon. She looks too much like Mom. He was tired of the rules-—beat the shit out of it, scare the shit out of it, or avoid it. They were exhausting. He couldn’t live by those three forever. He hated doing it. Here he was, and he’d spent five whole months in the same place, with a promise from their dad that there would be at least a sixth, and he still had to live by those stupid rules.

Sammy didn’t bother with that kind of thing—and sure, he got his little kid heart stomped on and ripped up, but he just kept on moving through it all, head in a book or in the clouds or bent over a puzzle book. Sam believed in himself. He had himself to count on. He didn’t need anyone else to say anything or do anything to keep himself upright, not the way Dean did. He had somewhere else to go where other people couldn’t go. Inside himself. He didn’t know how lucky that made him.

Dean broke the rules with Janice starting in February, and he’d known enough to keep his mouth shut around her all this time. It was spring now, though, and the weather was getting so much warmer, and nobody could really focus on schoolwork for very long, not even Sam. His resolve was crumbling. He could finish out the year with a girl tucked under his arm if he just—didn’t—screw—this—up.

Dean wanted to punch his own damn self right in the face, or slam his head into a locker, anything, in the five seconds before he broke rule number three and asked Janice Millman if she wanted to get a burger sometime—

You. Fucking. Loser. 

She looked over his combat boots, camo clothes and into his hard, hunter’s face, and he saw unadulterated fear. He wanted to melt right into the floor, just die right there and never go home again. He was his Daddy’s boy, and in that moment he knew he wanted to be anything else, and also that he never would be.

“Thanks, but…no.”

Dean watched her in silence for a moment, full lips slightly parted, and then forced himself to close his eyes for a second, look away. “Oh. All right.”

She ran in her white flip-flops and pink and white striped shorts that hugged a gorgeous ass, and caught up with a group of girls all staring back at Dean with that girl look. What the fuck is his problem? Seriously.

Dean took two uncertain steps forward, then made a split-second decision, turned on his heel, and sped through the school doors at top speed.

He didn’t know why he bothered opening his mouth.


End file.
